Heavy Metal Parking Lot

During the twentieth century the car became inextricably linked to popular culture. It came to be associated with sexuality and a prop in the performance of hypermasculinity. The group exhibition Heavy Metal Parking Lot acknowledges the historical role of the car as phallic signifier whilst adopting it as a cipher through which human drives are explored. Responding to the original function of the venue as a Volkswagen Garage, Heavy Metal Parking Lot recasts the exhibition space as something between a parking-lot and scrapyard. This intergenerational group exhibition brings together the work of nine international artists and explores the aesthetic and conceptual potential of the car in contemporary art. Several of the works in the exhibition anthropomorphize cars in order to investigate emotional states such as failure, desire and fragility. With a particular focus on sculpture and painting, the exhibition includes multiple allusions to Pop Art and its vital legacy. The recent advent of self-driving technology combined with the environmental crisis is changing how we utilise and think about the car. We are now witnessing the emergence of a new dynamic in the relationship between humans and machines. In the face of these changes will the car remain a potent symbol of power, desire and escape? Curator: Pádraic E. Moore With work from Vanessa Disler, Melissa Gordon, Richard Hamilton, Xavier Mary, Olaf Mooij, Alan Phelan, Monika Stricker, Erik Thys, and Sam Venables.